INTENSE Projects of the municipalities

Each partner municipality is developing one concept for an energy optimized housing planning, which for the purposes of overall INTENSE framework were named ‘mini-projects’. The starting points were 13 urban development projects – set up either as standalone projects or parts of existing larger initiatives – related to planning of new settlements, refurbishment of old buildings or other urban developments in a municipality. These 13 project concepts are improved through INTENSE intervention, by suggesting energy efficiency measures that are likely to result in a provable reduction of CO2 consumption in a municipality.

Although all mini-projects are individually quite specific, two distinctive groups can be observed:

Strategy (conceptual) mini-projects – eight projects using strategic steering instruments to influence the future concrete actions/realisation (overall strategic concept that will guide future developments in the municipality by means of regulations, restrictions, incentives …). This group includes activities of developing municipal energy efficiency strategies or action plans, physical plans for new settlements or district renovation plans with a strong energy efficiency component.

Demonstration (lighthouse) mini-projects – five stand-alone examples of concrete housing construction/reconstruction projects which demonstrate possibilities of applying energy efficiency measures, whose results can serve as background towards developing a more general future practice of energy optimized urban planning. Here one can find projects of refurbishment of old and construction of new buildings, or remodeling of installations to enable better energy performance.

All mini-projects contain certain aspects which are suitable for replication and transfer of lessons learned to other municipalities in the project context, but also at a wider European scale. Given the lack of good practice examples in Central and Eastern Europe that was established in the beginning of INTENSE, these municipal mini-projects have the potential to become the ‘shining examples’ of holistic planning in this region.